Fw: Saving Private Lynch: Take 2 - By Robert Scheer

["gerald w. bracey" <gbracey@erols.com>]

Here's a tasty bit of off topic news.


----- Original Message -----
From: <portsideMod@netscape.net>
To: <portside@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 1:46 AM
Subject: Saving Private Lynch: Take 2 - By Robert Scheer


> "After a thorough investigation, the British Broadcasting Corp. has
> presented a shocking dissection of the "heroic" rescue of Pvt.
> Jessica Lynch, as reported by the U.S. military and a breathless
> American press.
>
> "Her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management
> ever conceived," the BBC concluded - the polite British way of
> saying "liar, liar, pants on fire."
>
> ===
>
> Saving Private Lynch: Take 2
>
> By Robert Scheer,
> AlterNet - May 20, 2003
>
> http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15958
>
>
> In the 1998 film "Wag the Dog," political operatives employ special
> editing techniques to create phony footage that will engender
> public sympathy for a manufactured war. Now we find that in 2003
> the real-life Pentagon's ability and willingness to manipulate the
> facts make Hollywood's story lines look tame.
>
> After a thorough investigation, the British Broadcasting Corp. has
> presented a shocking dissection of the "heroic" rescue of Pvt.
> Jessica Lynch, as reported by the U.S. military and a breathless
> American press.
>
> "Her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management
> ever conceived," the BBC concluded - the polite British way of
> saying "liar, liar, pants on fire."
>
> Though the Bush administration's shamelessly trumped-up claims
> about Iraq's alleged ties to Al Qaeda and 9/11 and its weapons of
> mass destruction take the cake for deceitful propaganda - grand
> strategic lies that allow the United States' seizure of Iraq's oil
> to appear to be an act of liberation - the sad case of Lynch's
> exploitation at the hands of military spinners illustrates that the
> truth once again was a casualty of war.
>
> Lynch, who says she has no memory of the events in question, has
> suffered enough in the line of duty without being reduced to a
> propaganda pawn.
>
> Sadly, almost nothing fed to reporters about either Lynch's
> original capture by Iraqi forces or her "rescue" by U.S. forces
> turns out to be true. Consider the April 3 Washington Post story on
> her capture headlined "She Was Fighting to the Death," which
> reported, based on unnamed military sources, that Lynch "continued
> firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot
> wounds," adding that she was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed
> in.
>
> It has since emerged that Lynch was neither shot nor stabbed, but
> rather suffered accident injuries when her vehicle overturned. A
> medical checkup by U.S. doctors confirmed the account of the Iraqi
> doctors, who said they had carefully tended her injuries, a broken
> arm and thigh and a dislocated ankle, in contrast to U.S. media
> reports that doctors had ignored Lynch.
>
> Another report spread by news organizations nationwide claimed
> Lynch was slapped by an Iraqi security guard, and the U.S. military
> later insisted that an Iraqi lawyer witnessed this incident and
> informed them of Lynch's whereabouts. His credibility as a source,
> however, is difficult to verify because he and his family were
> whisked to the U.S., where he was immediately granted political
> asylum and has refused all interview requests. His future was
> assured, with a job with a lobbying firm run by former Republican
> Rep. Bob Livingstone that represents the defense industry, and a
> $500,000 book contract with HarperCollins, a company owned by
> Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox network did much to hype Lynch's story,
> as it did the rest of the war.
>
> But where the manipulation of this saga really gets ugly is in the
> premeditated manufacture of the rescue itself, which stains those
> who have performed real acts of bravery, whether in war or
> peacetime.
>
> Eight days after her capture, American media trumpeted the
> military's story that Lynch was saved by Special Forces that
> stormed the hospital and, in the face of heavy hostile fire,
> managed to scoop her up and helicopter her out.
>
> However, according to the BBC, which interviewed the hospital's
> staff, the truth appears to be that not only had Iraqi forces
> abandoned the area before the rescue effort but that the hospital's
> staff had informed the U.S. of this and made arrangements two days
> before the raid to turn Lynch over to the Americans. "But as the
> ambulance, with Pvt. Lynch inside, approached the checkpoint,
> American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the
> hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch," the
> BBC reported.
>
> "We were surprised," Dr. Anmar Uday told the BBC about the supposed
> rescue. "There was no military, there were no soldiers in the
> hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. [The U.S. forces] cried
> 'Go, go, go,' with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the
> sound of explosions," Uday said. "They made a show for the American
> attack on the hospital - [like] action movies [starring] Sylvester
> Stallone or Jackie Chan."
>
> The footage from the raid, shot not by journalists but by soldiers
> with night-vision cameras, was fed in real time to the central
> command in Qatar. The video was artfully edited by the Pentagon and
> released as proof that a battle to free Lynch had occurred when it
> had not.
>
> This fabrication has already been celebrated by an A&E special and
> will soon be an NBC movie. The Lynch rescue story - a made-for-TV
> bit of official propaganda - will probably survive as the war's
> most heroic moment, despite proving as fictitious as the stated
> rationales for the invasion itself.
>
> If the movies, books and other renditions of "saving Private Lynch"
> were to be honestly presented, it would expose this caper as merely
> one in a series of egregious lies marketed to us by the Bush
> administration
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
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